You could be forgiven for thinking that the Koenigsegg One:1 was designed as an internet-breaking meme as much as a car.
The performance claims are hard to compute. Koenigsegg says it can go from 0-250mph in 20 seconds, and it recently proved it could go from 0-186mph-0 in just 17.95sec.
The name sums up the car. The name is meant to be said as 'one-to-one', as an expression of its perfectly balanced power-to-weight ratio of one metric horsepower to one kilogram of mass (or 986bhp per tonne).
That’s when the twin-turbocharged 5.0-litre V8 engine is running on its favoured diet of E85 Ethanol, which is freely available in Sweden. Running on regular super-unleaded – as we are today - the output is restricted to just 1160bhp, although that’s still good for 852bhp per tonne.
A passenger ride comes first. It’s raining hard and the bloke charged with showing what the One:1 is capable of drives us to the test track, a mile-long former military runway that sits right next to the Koenigsegg factory.
The One:1 demonstrates a neat trick, automatically raising its ride height for the speed bumps on the exit road. GPS sensors also allow a battery of active systems to be adjusted corner by corner on tracks the car has learned, or which are downloaded through its internal 3G data connection.
It’s still raining and on the sodden surface of the runway something close to open warfare breaks out between the One:1’s engine and its stability control system, the engine fluttering as the vast 345/30 R20 Michelin Sport Pilots struggle for grip at the back. It never arrives: I’m looking at the digital speedometer as it passes 200km/h and I can still feel the rear end squirming.
And then, with jarring suddenness, the runway is approaching sideways and the driver is frantically winding on opposite lock. For a second or so he holds the slide, but then there’s the sensation of the pendulum swinging the other way and the One:1 starts to spin towards the rushing green that edges the asphalt. Fortunately we encounter nothing more than wet grass as we scythe a 50-yard track off the runway and stop, the cabin filled with nervous laughter.
The car itself is blameless. Walking back to where the spin started reveals deeply pooled water across the runway; even all that downforce couldn’t stop us from aquaplaning.
